World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Until July 31, when you purchase the latest World of Warcraft companion up for adoption in the online Pet Store, we’re donating 100% of the $10 USD adoption fee to the American Red Cross's Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami relief efforts.

This is a great time to tame the wild and noble Cenarion Hatchling! This little critter is the twin of the rare Hippogryph Hatchling pet players could randomly encounter in the first World of Warcraft Trading Card Game set, Heroes of Azeroth -- and he's emerged from the forests to lend a helping talon to some friends in need. This support will enable the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, emotional support, and other assistance to victims of this disaster.

To learn more, please visit the Pet Store FAQ.

The American Red Cross name and emblem are used with its permission, which in no way constitutes an endorsement, express or implied, of any product, service, company, opinion, or political position. For more information about the American Red Cross, visit http://www.redcross.org.

Written by New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden, the new novel Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects is now on store shelves. We’re pleased to present a series of three excerpts from the novel for your reading enjoyment.

Read the second excerpt below.

• [Read More]

Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Feral performance in PvE
That said, we're happy with Feral performance in PvE overall. It we were to nerf Predatory Swiftness, it'd have a minor impact on PvE. Unheeded Warning is both a PvE and PvP problem. The particular mechanics of the trinket keep it disproportionately powerful for Feral druids. Nerfing Berserk would have PvE ramifications, but we'll take steps overall to make sure your dps doesn’t drop in PvE. We do everything we can to ensure we're considering all aspects of gameplay when approaching class balance. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Feral stealth isn't superior to Rogue's
Given that they are exactly the same mechanically, this shouldn't be the case. This has been a particularly pervasive myth that I'd like to lay to rest. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The fact that this shouldn't be the case, doesn't mean it isn't. Also, saying its a myth, or believing it must be, does not make it so.
You're correct. Merely saying something isn't so, doesn't mean a thing.

Knowing that they're the same ability used by different classes, and knowing that this exact issue has been tested, repeatedly, in response to claims otherwise, does. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Feral Instinct
This is correct, choosing the Feral spec and gaining Feral Instinct merely brings Feral spec Stealth into line with Rogue baseline stealth (whose talents have been rolled into the ability). (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

SAO PAULO, Brazil. -- July 21, 2011 -- At an exclusive press event at the Museu da Casa Brasileira in São Paulotoday, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced that a fully localized Brazilian Portuguese version of its critically acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft®, will be released in Brazil later this year. Brazilian Portuguese will be the ninth officially supported language for World of Warcraft worldwide, and the third supported language in Latin America, complementing the existing English and Spanish versions.

An official Brazilian Portuguese World of Warcraft community website will also be available at launch.

In addition, players in Brazil will have access to customer service for the game in Brazilian Portuguese.

"One of our top priorities is ensuring that our games are easily accessible to players all around the world. By offering a fully localized version of World of Warcraft along with customer service in Brazilian Portuguese, we’re able to deliver an experience that meets our standards and the expectations of our players in Brazil," said Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment. "We look forward to welcoming Brazilian gamers to the global World of Warcraft community, and we hope they have a great time in Azeroth."

World of Warcraft, which now includes the content of thefirst expansion, The Burning Crusade®, as part of the base game, will be available in stores throughout Brazil at a suggested retail price of BRL 29.90. Fully localized versions of the second and third expansions, Wrath of the Lich King™ and Cataclysm™, will also be available at a suggested retail price of BRL 99.90 each. World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm will come packaged in a DVD case and will include the game media and documentation in Brazilian Portuguese.

Existing players on the North American realms will be able to download and install a free language pack to play World of Warcraft in Brazilian Portuguese. In addition, Blizzard will be creating designated Brazilian Portuguese realms as an option for players who have installed the language pack or purchased the Brazilian Portuguese game client.

Subscription plans will be available at launch at an expected price of BRL 15 (30 days), BRL 42 (90 days), and BRL 78 (180 day). Sixty-day time cards will also be available in retail stores at launch.

Players will also have the option to purchase and download full Brazilian Portuguese versions of World of Warcraft and its expansions through Blizzard’s Battle.net website (http://us.battle.net/pt/), using international Visa or MasterCard, or by using various local debit cards, credit cards, cash payments, bank transfers, or eWallet options through Blizzard Entertainment’s payment-gateway partner, DineroMail, for no additional fee. These payment method options include Boleto Bancario in Brazil.

Additional pricing details and an official release date for the Brazilian Portuguese version of World of Warcraft will be announced closer to launch. For more information on World of Warcraft in Brazilian Portuguese, please visit: http://us.blizzard.com/pt-br/company...ow-brazil.html.

The World of Warcraft Remote app for Android has leveled up to become the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory! We've just released a brand-new update for the free official World of Warcraft application for Android devices, and you can get it now from the Android Market. With the name change comes a number of improvements and additions that will help you stay even more connected to World of Warcraft wherever you go, including:

• Talents and glyphs
• Professions
• Reputations
• Calendar events
• Bookmarks
• Search improvements
• And much more!

Visit the Android Market and download the free Mobile Armory app today.

Android is a trademark of Google Inc. Portions of this page are reproduced from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

Written by New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden, the new novel Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects is now on store shelves. We’re pleased to present a series of three excerpts from the novel for your reading enjoyment.

Read the first excerpt below.

[Read More]

Written by New York Times bestselling author Christie Golden, the new novel Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects follows the former War Chief of the Horde as he struggles with the ongoing repercussions of the Cataclysm.

When Azeroth was young, the noble titans appointed the five great dragonflights to safeguard the budding world. Each of the flights' leaders was imbued with a portion of the titans' vast cosmic powers. Together, these majestic Dragon Aspects committed themselves to thwarting any force that threatened the safety of the World of Warcraft.

Over ten thousand years ago, a betrayal by the maddened black Dragon Aspect, Deathwing, shattered the strength and unity of the dragonflights. His most recent assault on Azeroth—the Cataclysm—has left the world in turmoil. At the Maelstrom, the center of Azeroth's instability, former Horde warchief Thrall and other accomplished shaman struggle to keep the world from tearing apart in the wake of Deathwing's attack. Yet a battle also rages within Thrall regarding his new life in the shamanic Earthen Ring, hampering his normally unparalleled abilities.

Unable to focus on his duties, Thrall undertakes a seemingly menial task from an unexpected source: the mysterious green Dragon Aspect, Ysera. This humble endeavor soon becomes a journey spanning the lands of Azeroth and the timeways of history itself, bringing Thrall into contact with ancient dragonflights. Divided by conflict and mistrust, these dragons have become easy prey to a horrific new weapon unleashed by Deathwing's servants . . . a living nightmare engineered to exterminate Azeroth's winged guardians.

Of even greater concern is a bleak and terrifying possible future glimpsed by Ysera: the Hour of Twilight. Before this apocalyptic vision comes to pass, Thrall must purge his own doubts in order to discover his purpose in the world and aid Azeroth's dragonflights as they face the Twilight of the Aspects.

World of Warcraft: Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects is now available at local and online book retailers!

Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/World-Warcraft...1038807&sr=8-1

Barnes & Noble - http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Wor.../9781416550884

Adding more Battlegrounds to the game
We’d like to. We certainly haven't forgotten about the PvP community at all and we do a lot of PvP oriented behind the scenes work right now. While not very much of that effort is channeled into creating new maps at the moment, we would definitely like to increase the variety of Battleground and Arena maps that are available in the future. That's where things get sticky, though. One might think that creating a Battleground is a pretty simple process (they look simple, right?), but it's not.

Part of the reason is that Battlegrounds are like ducks. A duck looks like it effortlessly glides across the water, but their little feet are actually working madly beneath the surface to make it happen. Battlegrounds are the same way. They may look simple -- even static -- to a casual observer, but in reality there's an incredible number of very complicated processes going on behind the scenes. Part of the reason for this is due to a lot of technical hurdles that need to be jumped to make them perform as seamlessly as they do, battle after battle. As a result, it's actually extremely difficult to design Battlegrounds, partially due to the technical limitations that are currently in place.

The other part of the reason is that Battlegrounds (and Arena maps, for that matter) require a higher degree of polish than a PvE map does. If a bit of geometry causes you to hang up, or blocks line of sight in a dungeon or raid, then in the majority of circumstances you can probably just work around it until it's fixed. If the same flaw exists in a bg or arena map, then that imperfection might be exploited for an unfair advantage, which runs contrary to the spirit of fair competition we want in that kind of PvP. We know that a lot of the PvP community is ultimately more interested in having perfectly balanced and bug-free maps to play on, than they necessarily are in having new maps to play on.

The other thing to keep in mind is that, while boss mechanics might differ from raid to raid, broadly speaking all dungeons and raids have the same rule set (that is, they have raid locks and you have to run back to the portal when you wipe and so on). BGs and Arenas tend to have highly individual rule sets. The result is that, in addition to the factors I’ve already mentioned, we also have to craft every BG essentially by hand every time. We’d like to develop a tool to create PvP maps in the same way we have a tool we can use to create bosses or a tool we can use to create items. Such a tool would let us create BGs and other PvP-oriented maps more readily. That's something that we're working toward now, but it's time consuming and exacting work, and still quite a ways off.

Still, ultimately we think all this effort will pay off, and we're confident that you'll feel the same way. In the meantime, there are still plenty of players of the opposing faction to send back to the Spirit Healer, and we hope you can continue to have fun making red dead wherever you find it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Need > Greed > Disenchant
Need: I need that piece of gear and will wear it/use it in my appropriate spec
Greed: I do not need that piece of gear and will probably not use it. I will most likely Vendor it or perhaps wear it "for pretty"
Disenchant: I don't even want to bother vendoring this. I would rather the materials that is made up of. I have great use of the disenchanted item than the original
I think this is a pretty fair diagnosis of the current functionality. I'd also note though that group communication is really important. If you're unsure about whether or not you should be rolling Need on an item instead of Greed/Disenchant, communicate with the party and let them know of your intent.

The system for rolling on items isn't perfect and doesn't have built-in functionality for off-spec rolls, etc., but part of this is because we expect there should be at least some base level of communication between the players, particularly if anyone in the group is running dungeons for items and not just the points. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Communication prevents a lot of heartache in dungeons I find ;)
Agreed. And for what it's worth, I'm sure we could implement enough rolling options that we could effectively remove any need to ever communicate with the party about what your intent behind each roll is -- the intent would be made clear by the button you press. Sometimes more options aren't always good though. We want the system to be useful and sensible, but not so comprehensive that it ends up being muddled and complicated.

We think the current options are pretty sufficient. If you need the item for your current spec, roll Need. If you can use the item for off-spec, roll Need, but perhaps wait for everyone else to roll first, and/or let the group know why you want to roll Need. If you have an enchanter in your group and you can use mats, roll Disenchant. If you don't need the item or the mats, or you don't have an enchanter in the group, roll Greed for a chance at some extra gold.

Even while queuing for random dungeons solo, I've virtually never run into any major loot disputes or issues. Particularly at this point in the expansion, a lot of players are running Heroics primarily for the JP/VP. Most players understand why you're rolling Need with little to no communication necessary. It's not hard to ascertain, for example, that a DPS death knight is rolling Need on a tanking item for off-spec, and not just to be a jerk. Provided that death knight is accommodating to the tank in the party before rolling, or at least makes an agreement with the tank in advance that they can roll against each other, it's all gravy. ;) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Do I need to read the new book to figure out what's happening in-game?
We work to make sure that there is balance between what you can learn in game versus the books. That said, the books do allow a bit more insight than you normally could get via the game, but that has to do with the fact that books and games (while they can both deliver story) tell the story in different ways. Hopefully, for those that don't choose to read the books, they can learn what they wish or need in the game itself. For those who have the time and inclination to read the books, they can get a bit more back story and depth that they may not feel is complete enough for them in the game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Death Strike Hotfix
The Death Strike hotfix was intended as a buff to single target Blood DK damage. Normally it’s not a big deal if one tank class does slightly higher or lower damage than other tank classes (as long as threat isn’t a problem), but when you have mechanics that greatly inflate tank damage, then it can be a bigger problem.

We discussed buffing Heart Strike or other attacks, but one of the concerns we commonly hear from Blood DKs is they feel torn about spending runes on Death Strike versus other abilities, and we didn't want to change their rotation in the middle of a patch, just modestly buff their damage. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

[...] For clarification's sake, we intended to increase critical strike chance. Improved Death Strike was not changed, merely buffed.

The hotfix was applied quite recently, so those of you who did not notice the improvement last night are correct. You can see the updated hotfix note here: (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

• Improved Death Strike now provides 40/80/120% bonus damage, up from 30/60/90%, and a 10/20/30% critical strike chance, up from 3/6/9%.